White fills printing black in Plotmaker

[Richard Morrison]

I'm trying to figure out why white (pen 91) solid fills are printing as solid black in Plotmaker. The pen settings appear correct, the screen display is correct, and it prints correctly directly from AC to an HP LaserJet. But when I print from Plotmaker to an HP DesignJet, I'm getting solid black. (So all the door tags are solid black dots, for example.) I can use an "empty fill" to get it to print correctly, but I'm stumped as to why I need to. Any ideas? (No difference between color printing and greyscale, BTW.) TIA-

[Anonymous]

I have had this problem when sending plots out to service bureaus, ususally ones using Océ plotters. In these cases it has always been the plotting software (their drivers) overriding the internal pen settings.

Are you printing or plotting to the DesignJet? I assume that you are plotting because I have never seen a printer make the mistake of printing white as black. In any case I suspect the problem is somehow due to settings of the DesignJet itself. Was it working properly with earlier versions of PlotMaker?

PS. Please provide more specifics about your hardware/software. (ie. Which DesignJet? Plotting directly, over ethernet, or using a server/spooler?) It makes it much easier to respond meaningfully.

[Richard Morrison]

Matthew:

Definitely PRINTING, directly. HPDJ430, using standard HP driver, and Windows spooling. I recall having had problems like this with earlier versions of Plotmaker, and I think I've just used the "Empty Fill" route to get around this.

I don't know what setting in the HP DJ driver could be responsible for this. I've got it set to "Color as grayscale" rather than "color to black." Don't see any other setting that might be responsible. Also, don't have problems with other programs using white fills. So, I'm stumped.

[rm]

Richard,

my logo has a white text over solid black areas. I plott to an HP 650c and it works fine. If you want, I can send you a copy to see if it prints ok on your end. If it does, you check out my pen settings and make similar setting changes to your pen "91".

Email me with an address if your interested.

Good luck,
Architects Design Forum, Ltd.

Robert Mariani

[vfrontiers]

Make sure you are NOT printing with "ALL COLORS TO BLACK" in the print dialog. If you need all colors to black, you should set that for EACH individual PMK (inserted drawing) in its own dialog box.

Happens to me too. Inkjet printing. Plotting seems to not mind (ie. it is DESIGNED to PLOT)...

[Richard Morrison]

I just did a test PLOT and interestingly, PRINTING causes these fill problems, but PLOTTING does not. (All colors to black was not the issue).

Previously, I had avoided plotting because some of the formatting (underlines, etc.) were not showing up correctly in OLE documents when plotting but were correct with printing. However, this last test plot looked pretty good with everything! So I guess this is the answer: PLOT.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Richard wrote:
So I guess this is the answer: PLOT.

Hi Richard,

I 'print' to an HP 500 and have no problems. I did have exactly the same problem you're having when I was learning to use AC with 6.5 a few years ago, and can't remember what the issue was (it was me and not the printer). Djordje figured it out then, as I recall. Escribe doesn't seem to search back far enough for me to find his post.

Since you're seeing the fill properly in the preview screen in PM 3.1 - pens-per-drawing and per print and display options correct, I would assume that the problem is in the printer driver itself. Do you have any options set in the printer setup dialogs that might affect colors?

In the HP 500 print setup dialog, there is a tab for CAD that lists an option for "lines and fills color" with an option for "use application colors" or "use only black". (I have "use app colors" selected.)

Also under the Color tab, there are options for "Color", "Grayscale", and "True Black". (I use "grayscale".)

Just punting...

Karl

[Richard Morrison]

Thanks for attempting the research, Karl, but there is no setting in the printer driver that I can find that would change anything, except the "color as grayscale" button. This is selected, rather than "convert all colors to pure black" option, which I don't think will help matters. <g> Color vs. grayscale in PM doesn't change anything for me. I don't have the same tabs as you do. I just checked to make sure I had the latest driver, too. Maybe Djordje still has those prior brain cells and will chime in...

[David Larrew]

Did you check to make sure the the "Output Color" in the "Drawing Settings" is not set to "All Colors to Black"?...

What do you have set as "Fill Background Color:" in the "Options\Preferences\Miscellaneous"?...

What do you have set as "Fills:" in "Display Options"?...

Have you tried saving to "PDF" and printing the .PDF file?

[Richard Morrison]

David wrote:
Did you check to make sure the the "Output Color" in the "Drawing Settings" is not set to "All Colors to Black"?...

What do you have set as "Fill Background Color:" in the "Options\Preferences\Miscellaneous"?...

What do you have set as "Fills:" in "Display Options"?...

Have you tried saving to "PDF" and printing the .PDF file?

David, yes, I've checked to make sure that "All colors to Black" is NOT checked.

Fill Background Color is set to "Use element's color"

Fills are displayed as vectorial in Display options.

PDF's print fine. HP Laser printer prints fine. It's just the HP DesignJet printer that doesn't. (But it works fine as a PLOTTER) This might lead one to believe that it's something in the DJ PRINTER driver that's the culprit, but I'm stymied as to what it could be.